Mara Man - 100% Seaweed?

by Mara SeaweedSeptember 18, 2014

Who is Mara Man?

A superhero? A merman? A seaweed aficionado? For Mara, he could well be all of these.

Mara Man is a force of nature with an irrepressible love of sea air. His sturdy legs and silver-speckled beard are a buffer against the strong winds and cold waters which daily bombard him on the Scottish coastlines.

Because Mara Man is at his happiest when he's knee deep in seawater, harvesting Neptune's most prized vegetable.

The man, the myth, the legend

This salty seadog goes by the name of Rory Macphee, and stems from Cornwall. Rory is a former maritime lawyer turned seaweed buff, and Mara’s chief seaweed harvester.

You'll find him appropriately clad in a woolly hat and a huge pair of waders, armed with a basket and a pair of scissors. He wades knee deep into the coldest, cleanest waters of Scotland to pick glistening Kombu and dark red Dulse at the lower reaches of the tide. With precision and agility, he scrambles along rocks to collect our precious Pepper Dulse.

The act of harvesting

Rory ensures that Mara's seaweed harvesting is ethical and environmentally friendly, "like pruning bushes." He follows a time-honoured crofting tradition, collecting seaweed seasonally at the lowest monthly tides during the new and full moon.

After hauling in his crop of seaweed for the day, Mara Man hangs it up to air dry, which takes three to four hours when the sun and wind are out. He then grinds the seaweed down to capture its intense flavours, freshness and nutritional benefits. Because Mara Man is never without a tin of seaweed to sprinkle on his food.